The Sharks of the Rivers

Sharks cause much fear from people. The word shark is synonymous with a killer. Perhaps this reputation isn't completely unfounded but perhaps it is a little exaggerated. Man's fear of sharks really hasn't been around that long, only a century. If I may point out that crocodiles don't have such a strong reputation for killing people yet they kill more people a year than sharks do. That could be because there hasn't been a killer crocodile blockbuster movie made and also because most people that conflict with crocodylians are people living in third world countries. More Americans conflict with sharks than with crocodiles. One of these days I will write on some of my favorite animals, the crocodylians.
Right now I will be writing on a fascinating specie of shark Charcharhinus leucas also known as the bull shark.
The bull shark is found in all warm and shallow seas around the world and they can even spend much of their life in a freshwater environment. They will swim up-rivers and can potential spend their entire lives in a river or lake. Estuaries and semi-saline waters are often used as nurseries for the bull shark. This is a very unique ability for a shark and they have been found remarkable distances from the ocean. The farthest up river that they have been found was 2,500 miles up the Amazon river! One that hits a little closer to home is that a bull shark was accidentally caught by commercial fishermen in the Mississippi river in Illinois, just a few miles north of St. Louis, Missouri. That was 1,750 miles from the Gulf of Mexico! You can read more about this interesting catch here. This cannot happen anymore, sadly, for dams have been built along the river causing passage that far up the Mississippi impossible for a shark.
In case you haven't noticed, that the places that the bull shark likes to swim is also where people like to swim.They are also extremely territorial and aggressive. This has caused many attacks and the bull shark had been labelled the third most dangerous shark to humans. They are probably responsible for more attacks than what has been attributed to them due to misidentification. The bull shark's range also matches with the most dangerous and second most dangerous sharks, the great white and tiger sharks, and they look similar to both. This encourages misidentification.
The bull shark was also probably one of the sharks involved with the 1916 New Jersey sharks attacks. This event was the inspiration for the movie Jaws and for good reason. Within two weeks, four people died due to a shark attack and one was injured. My theory is that there were only two sharks involved, one great white shark and a bull shark. The whole story of the attacks sounds like something from a fiction story and is quite fascinating.
Bull sharks can get pretty big reaching a length of 13 feet and weighing as much as 500 lbs. The females are usually larger than males.
The bull shark is an opportunistic feeder, eating whatever it can whenever it can. They will even eat smaller member of their own species. Sometimes they will eat bright pieces of litter such as cans and coins. This can cause hazards to the shark so don't litter, even if you live in Montana, because you might hurt a shark... Bull sharks use a unique killing method to bring down their prey. They will circle their prey and bump it with their nose which disorients their prey and can even kill their prey.
Their predators are naturally only what is bigger than they are. Great white sharks and tiger sharks are what they mainly need to be afraid of. Man often kills bull sharks as well. Due to their affinity to fresh-water and shallow seas, they will come in conflict with a crocodile with an affinity for salt-water. As you can see, the bull shark is on the losing side of the bargain.

Sharks are amazing creatures. There is an incredible variety of sharks throughout the world and the bull shark is one of them. The bull shark is definitely a fascinating creature.

Artist Highlight: Douglas Henderson

It has been a while since I have written. I have been out of town for a while and the internet on my wonderful computer has been working flawlessly so I have been bottled necked from any constant writing but know that I do have a couple of posts in the works including one on the sharks of Illinios. So stay tuned. For now I thought that I would write a quick post highlighting an inspirational artist.
    The artist that I am mentioning is a fellow by the name of Douglas Henderson. He lives in Whitehall, Mt. which is right in between Bozeman and Anaconda. It would be neat if we lived closer to there. He has been around a while and his art is used for many paleo-illustrations. He illustrated a very good children's book on the Ghost Ranch find of the South-West. Some of my favorite paleo-art pieces ever are his Coelophysis illustrations in that book.
    His work seems to be influenced by early landscape artists such as Thomas Moran, Frederick Church, and Albert Beirsdadt who were 18th and 19th century landscape artists. I like such influences in paleo-art, as much paleo-art often just isn't as fine as more main-line art may be. Often times paleo-artist seems to tend to be a little fantastic in their art and many paleo-artist are starting to heavily use digital media for their art which just isn't a good substitute for traditional media, in my opinion.
   His artwork seem to incorporate much landscape and his art is somewhat earthy which is something that I also like. Also, I would say that he is reminiscent of Charles Knight and Zdenek Burian except his dinosaurs have better anatomical accuracy.  
    His work isn't perfect and I must admit that I have seen better tyrannosaurs. Some of the best tyrannosaurs that I think I've seen would have to be from Raul Martin and possibly Gregory Paul.
     You can see his work and read more about him at his website and you can read an interview with him at the blog Archosaur Musing. Enjoy.

Early Watercolors: A Part of Art is Learning.

As I put some of my artwork on this blog hopefully there will be a noticeable progression of skill. In many ways, this blog will chronicle my own skills as they grow and expand. For example, I desire to get more into painting. I have, somewhat recently, been experimenting with watercolors and I have found them to be great fun. Eventually, I would like to get into oils but working with watercolors, at least, I can learn the medium and how to work with colors. So here is my first real attempt at watercolor painting.

 Pretty good, huh? The initials do say that Charles did it. Well, that was another Charles whose last name didn't have so many vowels. There are some artists that I consider a little depressing because they remind me how far I have to go and C.M. Russell happens to be one of them. Although, He is "inspiring" too. While his paintings can be a bit depressing, at the same time he is encouraging. He was completely self-taught and often used less than professional art supplies because he was poor and lived in Montana which at the time had no railroads. As he gained popularity, though, he used more professional supplies which became cheaper and easier to get as Montana grew.
Russell like to use watercolors and the majority of his paintings are watercolors. The painting that first introduced national attention to C.M. Russell was a simple watercolor drawing that he did on a cardboard box. I probably enjoy his watercolors more than any of his other works.
So now that things have been put into perspective, here is my own attempt at a buffalo using watercolor paints.

 

It isn't that bad, I guess. You get the idea of a brute staring at you. Details may be wanting perhaps, though I have gleaned much satisfaction from it, particularly at how the nose turned out. I will try not to point out all the cow-pies in my work but will keep them to myself.  I do not think that is a good habit; I will let the viewer notice the discrepancies. The white streaks in the buffalo's beard thing, more technically called a dewlap, are from the hairs of my paint brush including themselves into the painting, then falling out of the finished work. There is a low commitment level with paint-brush bristles, fickle beings that they are.

One other thing. While I was playing around with the paints, a picture grew out of a random streak that I made, that I then developed into a simple little painting. I kinda like it.

I just flicked my brush across my paper and the general shape of this side profile came into view. I imagined different things that would look good and painted accordingly. It was fun. I imagine him to be a samurai warrior turning his head. .You would see his back and he would be dressed in classical Japanese armour. Although, I don't know if a Japanese warrior would of had that kind of facial hair. Maybe you see something different. Let me know in the comments.

Welcome to My Blog

Welcome to the El T.rex Loco. This is a blog that will dedicated to the passions of its author which will mainly consists of paleontology, vertebrate zoology particularly herpetology, and art. Art probably seems to be a little unrelated and perhaps in a future date I will create another blog with the sole dedication to art, mainly my own.
I have loved paleontology, vertebrate zoology, and art for as long as I can remember. My mother could tell you stories... My interests in all things cool has matured with me which is contrary to the hopes of my mother. Mothers of folks like me hope that their eccentric son would "grow-out" of their eccentric interests, my mother is not alone. I think that they hope their son will become something normal and dignified like an engineer or something. I can imagine a motherly get together and all the mothers are bragging about their sons and the oodles of money that they are making, then they ask a mother who is quietly listening, what her son does. Answer "he studies squids." Though, I must admit that studying squids sounds like fun.
My interest in art, I believe, has grown out of my efforts to my portray interests, coupled with the my natural talents that I have inherited from my father. My father has a background in art. Some of my favorite artist include Rembrandt, Charles M. Russell, Robert Bateman, and an assortment of Paleo-artist.

 So in this blog I will be discussing things that I am learning, information that I may want to share, and drawings and paintings that I have done. I want to stay somewhat scientific. It will be a discipline of mine to write often. Bogs often get started and then they soon are forgotten by there authors. I am looking forward to writing this blog for it will give me opportunities to "talk" about things that the normal person may find somewhat interesting but will soon loose interest. If a reader gets bored then they can just "log-off."
Well there is that for now. I hope that you will enjoy.